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front of his plate was a many-faceted crystal goblet.
    When I finally managed to settle in my chair, Father signaled to Nathan to pour wine into the goblet. “See how it catches the light, Eleanor.” He raised it. “It makes the wine sparkle like a garnet.”
    “It’s pretty.”
    “Is that all? Just pretty?”
    “It’s very pretty, I suppose.” I refused to love it. He was going to sell it too.
    “You may appreciate it more if you drink from it. Have you ever tasted wine?”
    Mandy never let me. I reached for the goblet and trailed my balloon sleeves through the sparrowgrass sauce.
    But the goblet was too far away. I had to stand. I stood on my skirts and lost my balance, pitching forward. To stop my fall, I brought my arm crashing down on the table and knocked into Father’s elbow.
    He dropped the goblet. It fell and broke neatly into two pieces, stem severed from body. A red stain spread across the tablecloth, and Father’s doublet was dotted with wine.
    I steeled myself for his rage, but he surprised me.
    “That was stupid of me,” he said, dabbing at his clothes with a napkin. “When you came in, I saw you couldn’t manage yourself.”
    Nathan and a serving maid whisked away the tablecloth and broken glass.
    “I apologize,” I said.
    “That won’t put the crystal back together, will it?” he snapped, then collected himself. “Your apology is accepted. We will both change our clothes and begin our meal.”
    I returned in a quarter hour, in an everyday gown.
    “It is my fault,” Father said, cutting into a sparrowgrass spear. “I’ve let you grow up an oaf.”
    “I’m not an oaf!”
    Mandy wasn’t one to mince words, and she’d never called me that. Clumsy, bumbling, gawky — but never an oaf. Blunderer, lumpkin, fumble-foot — but never an oaf.
    “But you’re young enough to learn,” Father went on. “Someday I may want to take you into civilized company.”
    “I don’t like civilized company.”
    “I may need civilized company to like you. I’ve made up my mind. It’s off to finishing school with you.”
    I couldn’t go. I wouldn’t!
    “You said I could have a governess. Wouldn’t that be less expensive than sending me away?”
    A serving maid whisked away my uneaten sparrowgrass and replaced it with scallops and tomato aspic.
    “How kind of you to worry. A governess would be much more expensive. And I haven’t the time to interview governesses. In two days, you shall go to finishing school with Dame Olga’s daughters.”
    “I won’t.”
    He continued as though I hadn’t spoken. “I’ll write a letter to the headmistress, which I shall entrust to you, along with a purse filled with enough KJs to stop her protests against a last-minute pupil.”
    “I won’t go.”
    “You shall do as I say, Eleanor.”
    “I won’t go.”
    “Ella…” He bit into a scallop and spoke while he chewed. “Your father is not a good man, as the servants have already warned you, unless I miss my guess.”
    I didn’t deny it.
    “They may have said I’m selfish, and I am. They may have said I’m impatient, and I am. They may have said I always have my way. And I do.”
    “I do too,” I lied.
    He grinned at me admiringly. “My daughter is the bravest wench in Kyrria.” The smile vanished, and his mouth tightened into a hard, thin line. “But she shall go to finishing school if I have to take her there myself. And it will not be a pleasant trip if I have to lose time from my trading because of you. Do you understand, Ella?”
    Angry, Father reminded me of a carnival toy, a leather fist attached to a coiled spring used in puppet shows. When the spring was released, the fist shot out at a hapless puppet. With Father, it wasn’t the fist that frightened me; it was the spring, because the spring determined the force of the blow. The anger in his eyes was so tightly coiled that I didn’t know what would happen if his spring were tripped.
    I hated being frightened, but I was. “I’ll go